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CAPT. NATHAN HALE. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT GROTON, CONNECTICUT, 



HALE MEMOEIAL DAY, 

September 7, 1881, 



By EDWARD Er^^'^HALE. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



BOSTON : 

A. WILLIAMS & CO., WASHINGTON STREET. 

1881. 



X 



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CAPT. NATHAN HALE, 



I AM to give you a short account of the short life of 
Nathan Hale and of his death. I owe this privilege to 
the accident of birth, of which I gladly avail myself, 
and wilt not exceed my privilege. I shall leave it to 
others, who are around me now, who are far more fit 
than I am, to study the lessons of that short life of his, 
and to impress them upon you. 

I do not remember any other occasion, when an as- 
sembly so large as this came together, expecting any 
man to give the biography of a young man who had died 
more than a century before, when he had hardly at- 
tained manhood. It is certainly exceptional, that any 
biographer or eulogist, after a century has passed, 
should be speaking to thousands of persons who still 
take a fresh interest in a career so short, almost all the 
events of which passed in those early years, when the 
hero of them was, in the eyes of the law, at least, a boy. 
But Connecticut would not have been true to her his- 
tory, nor to the honorable place which it holds in the 
history of the nation, had she permitted the series of 
centennials to pass by, without solemnly devoting one 
day to the memory of this young man. His short life 
illustrates much which is most striking in that honor- 
able history of hers. Its incidents cannot be too care- 
fully remembered, if men would know what the Rev- 
olution was, and by what motives it was carried through. 
And we should begin another century unfitly, if we 
permitted the first century to close without distinct ref- 
erence to such patriotism and to such sacrifice. 



Nathan Hale was born on the 6th of June, 1755, in 
Coventry, hard by us here, a town in which one would 
be glad, then or now, to have been born. He was born 
from a mother whom one would have been proud to have 
been born from, the son of a father whom one would be 
glad to call father. His early education, in the midst of 
a large family of brothers and sisters, was the education 
of that distinctly domestic type, under definite religious 
direction, which one is tempted to call a New England 
education, when one speaks of the best custom of those 
days. It seems to have been simple without austerity, 
religious without terror ; it looked forward to the best, 
and upward to the noblest ; and there was no service to 
man or God to which the boy trained in such influences 
of home, neighborhood, and Church, might not aspire. 
With his brother Enoch, scarcely a year older than he, 
Nathan Hale entered Yale College when he was four- 
teen years old, having in view, perhaps, even then, the 
profession of a minister, which he certainly had in view 
afterward. He thus hoped to enter the service both of 
God and of man. 

Before I go further, may I say one word on the visi- 
ble effect of such distinctly religious training, as given 
in these old Puritan congregations of New England, in 
the political struggle of all that time ? No man under- 
stands the political history of the Revolution, who does 
not remember what for a century and a half had been 
the religious and ecclesiastical history of these New 
En glanders. 

They went into the contest with such confidence in 
their own local governments, and in their sufficiency to 
combine with others like themselves, that, really, single 
towns declared war, separately, against George HI,, 
the most powerful monarch of his time. Where did. 
such towns learn that lesson of self-reliance .'* How did 
they learn with it the other lesson equally important, — - 
that, when a great occasion should arise, such separate 
communities would stand together, shoulder to shoulder, 
as if they had been united in the most absolute political 
order .? Why, that was simply the lesson which the 



5 

Congregational Order had been teaching them from the 
beginning ! In that order, every church is absolutely 
separate for its own affairs, while it finds no difficulty in 
uniting, in absolute unity, with its sister churches 
against the common enemy of mankind. A hundred 
and fifty years had been teaching that double lesson to 
the serious citizens of the Connecticut congregations. 
Well, that is the central lesson of the civil liberty of 
to-day, — the lesson of local independence for local pur- 
poses, and of vital organic unity for all national pur- 
poses. It is that double lesson which gives the life and 
force to every constitution of government which 
the last century has called into being. I do not care 
where you find such a constitution. It may be the 
freshly torn parchment of Bulgaria ; it may be the lat- 
est constitution of poor Spain : in it, you would find 
tills effort to harmonize local independence and national 
unity, which first took form successfully when men united 
the independent congregations of New England in the 
unity of spirit in a Congregational order. When these 
men had States to construct, they had their old examples 
and successes in the Church to guide them. 

It is well remembered, among our New London 
friends here, that when young Hale addressed the town- 
meeting just after the battle of Lexington, with the 
audacity of boyhood, — for he was not yet twenty years 
old, — he cried, " Let us never lay down our arms till we 
have achieved our independence." The late Mr. Mar- 
vin, then a child, sat upon his father's knee, and turned 
and asked his father what the word "independence" 
meant. What did Hale mean by it ? Where had he 
learned the. word.? He had learned it in the history 
of the New England churches. It is those churches 
which gave the very word to the English language. 
You will not find it in Shakspere. You will not find 
it in Spenser. You will find it only as applied to the 
religious organizations of Englishmen, if you find it 
in Lord Bacon. The " Independents," who crossed to 
Holland under Robinson and under Bradford, landed at 
Plymouth, the men who had organized their infant con- 



gregations under Brown and Robinson, the men who 
had crossed to Holland, and under Win slow and Brad- 
ford and Brewster had landed at Plymouth, were the 
men who gave to your language that word, now so 
august in your history. And it was to an audience 
who remembered that history that Hale, who remem- 
bered it too, used the word in that bold prophecy of 
the beginning. He spoke that word in April, 1775. 
This is before the date of the controverted Mecklen- 
burg resolutions. I am surrounded on this platform 
by those who know better than I do. Let me ask 
them if there is on record any public demand for "in- 
dependency" earlier than this bold proposal of the boy 
Nathan Hale. 

The building in which the Union School was kept by 
Hale is still standing. It had been recently built by the 
proprietors, who had obtained incorporation, after Hale 
became the preceptor of the schools, in October, 1774.* 
There are many persons before me who have heard 
their fathers and mothers tell of the spirit with which 
Hale taught. The regular school was of thirty-two 
boys, "about half of whom were Latiners, and all but 
one of the rest were writers." In addition to this, he 
kept for young ladies, through the summer from five to 
seven every morning, another school, which was at- 
tended by about twenty scholars. The rising of the 
sun would seem to have been on a different calendar 
from ours, — or the habits of the young people. His 
school-house was very convenient, he writes. You have 
seen it, and can judge. He was a favorite in society. 
Handsome, athletic, frank, wide-awake in the great pop- 
ular questions which excited society, and true to the 
old creed of every Connecticut man, — independence in 
religion and independence in government, — he "en- 
deared himself to young and old. He had, in the fare- 
well exercises at New Haven, discussed the question 
whether the education of daughters be not more neg- 
lected than that of sons. Here, in New London, he was 

*Mr. Allyn has placed an admirable engraving of it in his memorial volume. 



in a high way to reform that error, if error there were. 
He began to contemplate seriously making the teach- 
ing of the young his profession for life, and New Lon- 
don his home. Had he done so, you and I might have 
seen and talked with this delightful old man. We 
might have heard him tell of this and that abortive 
effort for freedom which failed, because the sons of 
Connecticut stayed at home or left it to bounty-jumpers 
to fight their battles. But, thank God! his was another 
destiny, and this was not to be. 

At that time, Hale was not two years out of college. 
In college, he had endeared himself to his instructors 
and to his classmates. His taste for study, and for the 
best study, was distinctly formed ; and, even in the 
scanty memorials we have of his short life, it is clear 
that he was using books, and the best books, thor- 
oughly, carefully, and in every way well. Of that class 
in Yale College, many men gave themselves fully and 
freely to the country's service. The flower of Yale 
and of Harvard flung themselves into the army, as 
they did in these later years of another war for liberty. 
It is to be observed, indeed, by the student of the 
American revolution, that, like all great struggles for 
popular rights, it was a war fought by young men. 
General Hawley alluded yesterday to the youth of 
Lafayette, whose one hundred and twenty-fourth birth- 
day that day celebrated. And, when he joined the 
staff of Washington, Lafayette found men near his 
own age. Hamilton, indeed, was younger than he. 
Washington himself, whom they so venerated as a 
father, was in his forty-fourth year when the war 
began. Ward, who was superannuated as an old man 
unfit for command, was forty-eight when he was su- 
perseded. Knox was but twenty-five when the war 
began, and many of his companions were not thirty. 
The young republic needed young blood, and she 
found it. She was willing to avail herself of the tried 
wisdom of a Trumbull and a Franklin. She was not 
afraid to trust the young enthusiasm of a Hamilton 
and a Hale. 



8 

During all Hale's residence in New London as a 
teacher, he was, in the eye of the law, an ''infant." 
He was not, therefore, technically a ''freeman." But 
he was enrolled in the militia, and he was profoundly 
interested in the military discipline which the time 
required. It is his prominence in the community, as 
a favorite with the young, which permits one not yet 
of age to speak at the meeting called after the battle of 
Lexington. He enrolls himself as a volunteer, writes 
to Coventry for his father's permission to serve in one 
of the companies of the new establishment, and having, 
of course, received that permission from the sturdy 
patriot, enlists in Webb's regiment, the Seventh Con- 
necticut, and asks the proprietors of the school to 
excuse him from future duty. The regiment was one 
raised by order of the General Assembly that year for 
home defence, and for the protection of the country at 
large. In this regiment. Hale was first lieutenant ; 
and, after the first of September, captain. The com- 
pany consisted of seventy-one men, and was organized 
before the end of July. The first service was in the 
neighborhood of New London; but on the 14th of 
September it was marched, by Washington's orders, to 
the camp at Cambridge. 

We have his brief diary of the march of the detach- 
ment. It passed by Rehoboth, through Attleborough, 
Wrentham, Walpole, and Dedham to Roxbury, where 
Hale's company encamped on the evening of Septem- 
ber 26. They were afterward transferred to Cambridge 
and Charlestown, and encamped at the foot of Winter 
Hill. You will remember that when, on the 17th of 
June, your own General Putnam grimly retired from 
Bunker Hill, which he had done so much to hold, he 
said he would be willing to sell another hill to King 
George at the same price. There was no lack of hills 
in America. Winter Hill was the next hill ; and here, 
for most of that winter, Webb's regiment was posted. 
On the 30th of January, it was removed to the right 
wing of the army at Roxbury, under the immediate di- 
rection of Ward. In this service, it was able to partici- 



pate in the great enterprise of the occupation of Dor- 
chester Heights, in the work of one night there, — work 
which the English officers of the time described as if it 
had been a work of enchantment, — drove the Enghsh 
fleet and army from the harbor of Boston, and, as it 
proved, from the territory of the United Colonies. 
For nearly five months afterward, no foot of an enemy 
pressed the soil of Slates which were determined to 
be free. 

Hale's account of the way in which his men and he 
himself spent that autumn and winter is itself an inter- 
esting contribution to one of the most interesting peri- 
ods of our history. From the city from which those 
men drove an alien enemy, you have asked me, kindly, 
to come to address you. 

This gives me a right to pause a moment to recog- 
nize the solid work done in the siege of Boston by 
the Connecticut contingent. General Hawley has 
alluded to the zeal and energy of Putnam. In the 
story of Bunker Hill, the place which Knowlton with 
his regiment held, the exposed left flank of the Amer- 
ican force, — proved to be the post of honor as of 
danger. When Prescott and his men were driven 
from the redoubt, they were received behind Knowl- 
ton's force, which preserved its military order, and in 
military order covered the retreat. Connecticut regi- 
ments have had that same thing to do in later wars. 
What seemed the lethargy of Washington and the 
American army, in the early summer, was, as we now 
know, due to their deficiencies in ammunition and in 
artillery. From the last need, they were relieved by 
the result of the Connecticut conquest of Ticonde- 
roga, so soon as the snow on - the Green Mountains 
became practicable, that the mortars and artillery might 
be carried across New England to direct their fire upon 
Boston. 

Of that whole winter, the greatest success was not 
a feat of arms. It was the success, not to be par- 
alleled, hard to understand or to believe, by which 
one army was disbanded and another enlisted, in the 



lO 

face of an enemy of equal, if not superior, numbers. 
The besieging army was virtually an army of minute 
men while the year 1775 lasted. After New Year's day, 
in the year 1776, it was an army of men enlisted by the 
Continent, and enlisted, in most instances, for the war. 
Every student of our history remembers the intense in- 
terest with which Washington watched over this change 
of his forces. In Hale's Diary, the student has the 
chance to follow it in its detail. Take such an entry as 
this : " Promised the men, if they would tarry another 
month, they should have my wages for that time." It 
was, I suppose, a face-to-face discussion with almost 
every private, to induce him to enlist under the new 
establishment. This effort ends when, having given 
his own pay to his men, he borrows from Capt. Leaven- 
worth the money to go home with, giving him an order 
for his pay to January, and returns to his father's house. 
He goes home, that he may enlist a new company there. 
One month of that frank, friendly, loyal zeal of his is 
enough, and, on the 27th of January, 1776, the boy, not 
yet of age, arrives with recruits who enlist for the war 
and will stand by to the end, at General Ward's head- 
quarters at Roxbury. 

In the great achievement of the fortification of Dor- 
chester Heights, on the 5th of March, which we owe 
to the military genius of Thomas and Ward and Wash- 
ington, Hale's regiment seems, as said, to have shared. 
When the English were fairly on their way to Halifax, 
Washington foresaw their effort to occupy New York, 
and detached Lee and Heath and most of his army to 
that city. With this contingent was Webb's regiment, 
and with that army the rest of young Hale's life was 
spent. He marched with his regiment, which was one 
of five who came from Cambridge to this place, and 
sailed hence to New York. This was in the last week of 
March.* Through the exciting summer which followed, 
Ae was in active service. Of this service, a few letters 
preserve our chief memorial. The first important duty 

* See Enoch Hale's Diary in the Appendix. 



II 

in which he was engaged was the cutting out of an 
EngUsh sloop laden with supplies, which, though under 
the guns of the " Asia," man-of-war, was not safe from 
the amphibious seamen, soldiers of Webb's regiment. 
At the head of a boat load of men, Hale boarded her at 
midnight, and brought her in, in triumph to the pier. 
Her stores were distributed as clothing and as food in 
the army. It was the double capacity of these men, 
trained for either element, which kept this regiment 
from Thames River, in New York. At one time, it 
was put on the list for detachment to Canada. " But 
the question was asked whether we had many seamen, 
and the answer. being yes, we were erased, and another 
put down in our place." 

My little story is hastening to its end. But I will 
not come to that end without saying a word of the 
work those men did for American liberty, who served 
it by sea as well as by land. Standing where I stand, 
in sight of the river from which sailed so many of the 
American privateersmen, I should but half tell my 
story if I did not say that word. The truth is that 
the history of the naval enterprise of the Revolu- 
tion has never been adequately written out, perhaps 
cannot be ; and, in the general estimate of the Revolu- 
tion, the effects of that enterprise are not enough re- 
garded. At the time when Hale died, the war with 
America was universally popular in England. Five 
years after, the House of Commons voted that they 
who advised a continuation of the war in America were 
enemies of their country ; and undoubtedly the House 
of Commons reflected' English opinion. It is my be- 
lief, and I think history will show, that the steady 
change in English opinion in those five years was 
wrought more by the losses of English merchants on 
the seas than by the losses of English armies on the 
land. Even before the French alliance, the annual 
naval appropriations of Parliament were of necessity 
larger than those of the army. In the year 1777 
alone, only forty English vessels out of two hundred 
engaged in the African trade escaped the American 



cruisers. Of the fleet that traded between Ireland and 
the West Indies, scarcely half escaped. Two hundred 
and fifty vessels in the West Indian trade, with cargoes 
amounting to ten million dollars, were captured in a 
single year. We do not wonder to read that for the 
insurance of a vessel for a single voyage more than 
fifty per cent, was paid in England. This war upon 
the sea was, in practice, carried on by the privateers of 
Essex County in Massachusetts, and by your own Con- 
necticut seamen here. At the end of the war, the 
privateer fleet of the port of Salem alone counted 
twenty-six ships and thirty-three smaller vessels, which 
carried four thousand men and twelve hundred and 
eighty guns. The fleet of New London and of this 
river was probably as strong until the events which 
yesterday celebrated. The incursion which resulted 
in the burning of New London was the vengeance of 
England against this harbor of her enemies. 

[General Hawley, behind the speaker, said, at this mo- 
ment, that it was on record that eight hundred and three 
prizes were brought into New London in the coarse of 
the war.] 

Capt. Hale's web-footed soldiers were called on all 
that summer, in their double capacity. I have no doubt 
but they were at work with Glover's Marblehead men 
all that critical night of the 29th of August, when the 
army retreated from Brooklyn to the city of New York ; 
for McDougal had the charge of the transportation, and 
Webb's regiment was in McDougal's brigade. A week 
before, in Hale's last letter to his brother, he describes 
a spirited attempt made by Sergeant Fosdick, of his 
own company, and four privates to set fire to the frig- 
ate *' Phoenix." The attempt was made doubtless under 
Hale's own orders ; and, though it did not succeed as 
fully as had been hoped, the men received the thanks 
and rewards of the General, and the ''Phoenix" and her 
companion returned to the Narrows. *' It is agreed on 
all hands," Washington writes, '* that our people be- 
haved with great resolution and intrepidity." Though 



13 

the " Phoenix " escaped, one of her tenders was captured, 
and four cannon and six swivels were taken from her. 

After the letter describing this gallant affair, we have 
a few broken notes in Hale's Diary, which closes sud- 
denly with a memorandum of the first skirmishing be- 
fore the battle of Long Island. After this event, we 
must trace his short history, with no help from his own 
pen. Through the month of September, Washington 
is steadily driven further and further up the island. 
After the battle of Long Island, Knowlton had organ- 
ized, under his own command, a separate corps of 
officers and men from New England regiments. This 
corps is spoken of as Knowlton's Rangers. The officers 
and men had volunteered for this service, and on the rolls 
of their own regiments are spoken of as "detached on 
command." They received their orders directly from 
Washington and from Putnam, and were of great ser- 
vice in watching the enemy along the Harlem front. 
In this little corps of one hundred and fifty men. Hale 
was one of the captains. Stephen Brown and Thomas 
Grosvenor were two others. They bore off the honors 
of the battle of Harlem Heights. In that action, 
Knowlton was killed. " I asked him," said his Capt. 
Brown, "if he was badly wounded. He told me he 
was ; but says he, * I do not value my life, if we do but 
get the day.' When gasping in the agonies of death, 
all his inquiry was if we had drove the enemy." They 
did drive the enemy, they did win the day ; and 
Knowlton gave his life for the victory. The spot where . 
he fell can be perfectly identified. It is, I believe, in 
one of the most picturesque parts of the Central Park. 
It is of Knowlton that Washington said in General 
Orders that he was a gallant and brave officer, who 
would have been an honor to any country. The day 
will come when some group of bronze in the great 
Central Park shall bear this inscription in memory of 
one of Connecticut's noblest sons. 

But where is Hale, as these weeks pass by.? "The 
gallant and brave Colonel Knowlton, who would have 
been an honor to any country, having fallen yesterday, 



14 

while gloriously fighting, Capt. Brown is to take com- 
mand of the party lately led by Colonel Knowlton." 
These are Washington's words in General Orders the 
next day. Hale is not wont to be absent from the field 
of danger. It is another line of duty to which he is 
called; and once and again, far away, he hears the 
shots of distant battles, and wonders whether they are 
aimed by his foes or by his friends. 

He was on special service ; on difficult service ; ser- 
vice called dishonorable, but service of his country. 
"We have not been able to obtain the least informa- 
tion," said Washington, on the 6th of September, '' of 
the enemy's plans." In sheer despair at the need of 
better information than the Tories of New York City 
would give him, the great commander consulted his 
council, and at their direction summoned Knowlton to 
ask for some volunteer of intelligence, who would find 
his way into the English lines, and bring back some tid- 
ings that could be relied upon. Knowlton summoned 
a number of officers, and stated to them the wishes of 
their great chief. The appeal was received with dead 
silence. It is said that Knowlton appealed to a non- 
commissioned ofificer, a Frenchman, who was an old 
soldier. He did so only to receive the natural reply, 
" I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung." Knowl- 
ton felt that he must report his failure to Washington, 
when the youngest of his captains spoke, and Nathan 
Hale said, " I will undertake it." He had come late to 
the meeting. He was pale with recent sickness. But 
he saw an opportunity to serve, and did the duty next 
his hand. 

We have on record from his college classmate, Hull, 
the statement which Hale himself made at the moment. 
Hull says he himself put fairly before Hale the danger 
of the task and the ignominy attached to it in failure. 
Hale replied, " I wish to be useful, and every kind of 
service necessary to the public good becomes honorable 
by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country 
demand a peculiar service, its claims to perform that 
service are imperious." These are the last words which 



15 

we can report from him till the moment of his death. 
He promised Hull to take his arguments into consider- 
ation, but Hull never heard from him again. 

In the second week of September, he left the camp 
for Stamford, with Stephen Hampstead, a sergeant in 
Webb's regiment, from whom we have the last direct 
account of his journey. With Hampstead and Ansel 
Wright, who was his servant in camp, he left his uni- 
form and some other articles of property. He crossed 
to Long Island in citizen's dress, and, as Hampstead 
thought, took with him his college diploma, meaning to 
assume the aspect of a Connecticut school-master visit- 
ing New York in the hope to establish himself. He 
landed near Huntington, or Oyster Bay, and directed 
the boatman to return for him at a time fixed by him, 
the 20th of September. He made his way into New 
York, and there, for a week or more apparently, prose- 
cuted his inquiries. He returned on the day fixed, 
and awaited his boat. It appeared, as he thought ; and 
he made a signal from the shore. Alas ! he had mis- 
taken the boat. She was from an English frigate which 
lay screened by a point of woods, and had come in for 
water. Hale attempted to retrace his steps, but was 
too late.* 

He was ordered to remain, was seized and exam- 
ined. On his person were the notes he had taken, 
written, as it proved, in Latin. They compromised him 
at once. He was taken on board the frigate, the cap- 
tain of which expressed his grief that he had to detain 
so fine a fellow. There was not a day's delay, and 
Hale was sent back immediately to New York. 

He was at once sent well guarded to New York. 
He landed there when the city was in the terrors of a 
great conflagration. It was on that 21st of Septem- 
ber, when nearly a quarter of the town was burned 

*In the rage and distress of the excitement of the time, the rumor spread that Hale 
was betrayed by a Tory kinsman. But the narrative in the text, which is that of Solo- 
mon Worden, of Oyster Bay, gives no room for any such treachery; and I know no 
evidence for it, beyond " 'tis saui." I know that my father did not believe the story of 
treachery: I do not think his fatlier did. The fact that the disgrace was now attached to 
one cousin, now to another, shows almost certainly that it belongs to neither. 

E. E. H. 



i6 

down. Nearly five hundred houses were destroyed. 
In the midst of the confusion and terror, Hale is 
marched up to Howe's head-quarters, and there he 
meets his doom. 

The trial was short. Hale was not there to prevari- 
cate. Nay, the papers on his person were his con- 
demnation. He was to be hanged the next morning. 
And only one thing worse can be added to the agony 
of such a death. He is to be hanged by WiUiam Cun- 
ningham, provost-marshal of the English army. 

Of the sleepless night which followed, we have little 
memorial. He wrote to his father and family. Cun- 
ningham destroyed the letters before his eyes. "The 
rebels shall not know they have a man who can die so 
bravely." He asked for a Bible : his request was re- 
fused. At morning, he is marched out to the gallows. 
Cunningham, in derision, bids him speak to the people. 
And Hale turns and says, in words which are immor- 
tal,— 

" I only regret that I have but one life to give to my 
country." 

The first news Washington receives of the adventure 
is by the flag of truce by which Howe sends him spe- 
cial word that his messenger is hanged. 

Thus ends a martyr's life. Hardly three months had 
passed since he was twenty-one years old. 

It is to be wished that some one had asked Washing- 
ton, while he lived, what was the special information 
for which he was willing to detach an officer of such 
worth, under circumstances so critical. Of that object^ 
no record was made. But it is easy to see how difficult 
yet how necessary it was, in the first confusion, — the 
chaos of the retreat from Long Island and the second 
retreat back on the island of New York, — to learn 
what was the English force, and, if possible, what the 
purposes of the commander. The news of Hale's 
death was received by his friends with an agony of 
distress. It happened, five years after, that the whole 
history was recalled again, when Andre was captured 



and tried. Major Tallmadge, who had charge of Andre 
as a prisoner, broke to him his own fate by telling him 
the story of Hale, which Andre knew only too well. 
Andre himself alluded to it on his trial. I think Clin- 
ton refers to Hale in his note on Andre s case. I think 
he means to say that Hale's death was Howe's work, not 
his. " Thou canst not say I did it." * From that time 
to this time, the parallel between these two young men, 
both brave, both rash, if you please, and both unfortu- 
nate, has often been pursued. 

I will not follow it. I am too near in blood and in 
affection to Hale. I am too far from Andre in training 
and habit of thought, and in my notion of what is the 
object of a man's life. This, only, will I say: that, 
whoever tells Andre's story, as he discusses the end 
of his life, has to carry the weight of the wretched fact 
that, in Andre s own letter to his judges pleading for 
that life, he makes statements which are untrue, and 
which he knows are untrue when he makes them. No 
such difficulty hampers the speaker or the writer who 
tells the short story of Nathan Hale. 

Let me rather close this memorial of one whom I 
have learned to honor and love, by comparing him with 
another son of Connecticut, a soldier, and a brave sol- 
dier, too, who in that day filled a place far larger than 
Nathan Hale was called to, but whom, this to-day, every 
man would be glad if he could forget forever. Benedict 
Arnold went forth to war at the same summons with 
Hale. He won early honors and preferment, though 
Dr. Bacon tells me that his honors were always from 
those who did not know him, and never from Connecti- 
cut herself. No man asks where is his burial-place. 

* The passage is, " Mr. Washington ought to remember that / had never, z'n any one 
instance, punished the disaffected colonists wiihin my power with death, but, on the con- 
trary, had in several shown the most liumane attention to his intercession, even in favor 
oi avowed spies.'''' It seems to me that, in this passage, Clin'on alludes to Howe. No 
one has ever complained that Hale's sentence, under the laws of war, was not just. 
He did not complain himself. It was brutally executed. For this, Howe's excuse must 
be that a quarter of the city was burning when he pronounced sentence : he was in the 
flush of success, and doubtless thought the whole matter well-nigh over. Whether a 
prisoner before him did or did not hold a commission, was or was not in service as a sol- 
dier, would be of no consequence when the Rebellion was put down, as he probably 
thought it would be within a few months' time. 



i8 

No man, after a hundred years, retraces every step of 
his life, in fond wish to reproduce his history. When 
he was born, a fond mother gave to him the name of a 
Christian saint, of one who had been foremost in the 
triumphs of the Church, and, to-day, in all the millions 
of America, there is no man or woman but would as 
soon call a child by the name of Judas Iscariot as by the 
name of Benedict. ''Who also betrayed her." This. is 
his epitaph. A friend of mine, travelling in the East, 
met an accomplished Englishman, who joined cordially 
in the intimacies of travel. But, when the American 
gave his name to the other and asked his in return, he. 
hesitated, he begged to be excused. '^ Indeed, you will 
be sorry you asked. You will not like me as well as you 
do now." No, indeed. For the name was the wretched 
name of Benedict Arnold ! 

It is not to success in battle, it is not to eloquence of 
speech, it is to prompt self-sacrifice, it is to readiness 
to die when one's country calls, that the honors of 
to-day are given. It is to such sacrifice, such loyalty, 
and such truth that we owe it, that any man may be 
proud indeed, this day, that he is called upon to say a 
halting word in memory of Nathan Hale. 



APPENDIX. 



I owe the honor of being asked to dehver this commemorative 
address to the good fortune of birth. I am the oldest living son 
of Nathan Hale, who was the oldest son of Enoch Hale, who was 
the brother of Capt, Nathan Hale, the martyr spy, whom we com- 
memorate. Enoch Hale was his classmate in college, and bound 
to him by the closest affection. 

A certain interest then attaches to Enoch Hale's very brief 
diary of the year 1776, and to its allusions, though ,they be the 
most concise, to the history of the country. The brevity of these 
allusions is not to be referred to any sternness or hardness of 
temper. It springs only from the character of the little "Regis- 
ter " itself. He seldom gave two lines to the record of a single 
day, and had no more thought of expressing emotion here than 
if he had been writing in his cash-book. 

I extract, therefore, the few allusions made to outside history 
between March and October. They have never before been 
printed: — " E. E. Hale. 

March 6. — Hear that Boston is cannonaded. Began Saturday 
night last. 

March 17. — General Howe, etc., leave Boston. 

March 29. — Colonel Miflin goes through Lyme for New York. 
Five regiments gone by water from New London. Brother Cap- 
tain gone. 

April']. — Rev. Judson returns [to Cuelsea in Norwich from 
New London] in the evening. Admiral Hopkins coming in there 
with the American fleet, with some cannon, etc. ; and the governor 
from New Providence, and a bomb brig, and two tenders taken 
from Wallace's fleet. Had a brush with the Glasgow, etc. 

April 8. — General Washington enters Norwich. Write short 
to Brother Captain. 

April 10. — -Lodge at Rev. Cogswell. Miss Lucy returns from 
spinning meeting. Spun ninety odd knots of good yarn. Miss 
spun sixty-three knots, and yesterday Miss spun eighty- 
four knots. 

April II. — Royal Flint at Weathersville making saltpetre. 

April 15. — Congress has given liberty for a free trade with all 
nations, except for India teas, excluding the subjects of the 
King of England and their produce; also for privateering and 
seizing all English vessels. 

May I. — [Brooklyn.] Williams gives me an elegy on the times, 
by J. Trumbull. 



20 

May 6. — [Westford.] Go to training, pray with the soldiers, 
and dine with Ensign Robins. 

May 8. — I ride as far as Rev. Welch's. Dine at Rev. Hunt- 
ington's. See his George Washington. 

May 17. — Continental fast. Preach at Westford. Vide No. 8 
and 26. 

May 31. — Frost this morning. It kills some brakes and white 
oak leaves. 

y7me 2. — Snow and wet. [At Westford.] 

Jime 3. — Coal fire. 

Jime 19 — John got home at night. Has received a letter from 
Nathan, dated 17th at New York. [This letter is lost.] Has sent 
one for me by the way of Norwich. Not received yet. [This 
letter is probably that in Stuart's Life, page 6y.'] 

June 20. — Sat down to write again to him, and 

Jiuie 21. — Carry it to Sargeant Nat. Root, with one for John to 
carry to New York. 

Julys.. — -Training here [Ashford] at Capt. Clark's, to enlist 
men. Little too backward. Many of the old soldiers think them- 
selves too good to go without hire. The rich say they may turn 
out. 

July 2 — Two gentlemen from Philadelphia lodge here. 

July 8 — Capt. Massey and company meet here. 

July 10. — [Coventry.] Independance declared by Continental 
Congress. [ This line is written in after the other parts of the 
manusrript.] 

July 11. — Send back the Captain's horse by brother Joseph, 
who goes to meet the Company there [Ashford] to be mustered. 

July 23. — Get to New Haven about eight o'clock. Put up at 
Mr. Jeremiah Atwater's. 

July 24. — See the President. Pay him for degrees for myself 
and brother, $4.00. [These were their degrees as Masters of 
Arts.] Dine with Hiilhouse, Esq. Drink tea at Rev. Edwards. 
President makes a blundering hand in giving degrees. Lodge 
with Robinson. 

July 2^. — [At New Haven.] Dine with Hiilhouse again. Tea 
at Rev. Whittlesey's. Call upon Cogswell and Fitch. Buy of 
Fitch McFingal, at one shilling. Sign for four Mr. Dwight's 
oration. Write to Brother to tell him I have got him his degree. 

Jtily 26. — Leave New Haven. Have had a good Commence- 
ment. Goodrich made the Cliosophic and Russel the Valedictory; 
Mr. Dwight the answer. Beside, we had a dispute and dialogue. 

August I. — [Coventry.] Rev. Strong talks of going as Chaplain. 

August 14. — Rev. Strong rode to Simsbury town. The militia 
going to New York, all on west side of the river in Connecticut, 
and Col. Wolcott's and Chapman's regiments on the east. Lord 
Howe's army all collected, it is said, at or near New York. 

August 15. — Write to Brother Captain by Cousin Joseph, who 
goes with the militia. 



21 

August 26. — [Granville.] Hear part of a Tory's trial [Mr. 
Fowler], etc. 

August -^o. — Committee come to see me. Conclude to return 
again before I go home ; also to preach to the soldiers before they 
march. 

September 2. — Clear, but some clouds about noon. Finibh No. 
35 by noon, and preach it at four o'clock, to a considerable assembly. 

September 4. — Hear of melancholy disaster at New York; our 
army obliged to leave Long Island and soon New York. 

Septeinber 10. — [Coventry.] Ride with Mr. Lyman home and to 
Freeman's meeting. Make a prayer at opening of the meeting. 
Captain Kingsbury and Abram Burnap, Esq., chosen represen- 
tatives. 

SepteDtber 22. — News of fight at New York, but very imper- 
fect yet. 

September 24. — Capt. Codey desires me to go and see him and 
company. March on Thursday. 

Septe7nber 25. — [Granville.] Ride to Hartland, and preach for 
Rev. Church. Vide No. 37, 38, on a Fast kept on a Proclamation 
from the Governor to observe it last Thursday ; but not heard of in 
season at Hartland, so adjourned till to-day. 

September -^o. — Afternoon. Ride to Rev. Strong's, Salmon Brook. 
Hear a rumor that Capt. Hale, belonging the east side Connecticut 
River, near Colchester, who was educated at college, was sentenced 
to hang in the enemy's lines at New York, being taken as a spy, or 
reconnoitering their camp. Hope it is without foundation. Some- 
thing troubled at it. Sleep not very well. 

October 2.. — At the meeting-house see Uncle Elnathan Strong, 
lately from New York. Hear some farther rumors of the Captain, 
not altogether agreeing with the form-^r. 

October d. — Ride over to West Mountain and preach. Have 
thirteen cases to mention; four of thanks for safe return from 
camp, three for two deaths to be sanctified; six persons sick. 

October 15. — Call at Squire William Wolcott's. Get a pass to 
ride to New York. Saturday, returned to Granville. Friend 
Lyman gone to the camp at New York. Accounts from my Brother 
Captain are indeed melancholy ! That, about the second week of 
September, he went to Stamford, crossed to Long Island (Dr. 
Waldo writes), and had finished his plans, but, before he could get 
off, was betrayed, taken, and hanged without ceremony. . . . Some 
entertain hope that all this is not true, but it is a gloomy, dejected 
hope. Time may determine. Conclude to go to the camp next 
week, 

October 21. — Prepare to ride to the camp, and be gone from 
home two Sabbaths. 

October 23. — Riding to Greenwich. Lodge at Mr. Titus Mead's, 
twenty-eight miles. Courteously entertained at Mr. Mead's, gratis. 
Ride to camp. See some friends, John and Richard, and return to 
Rye Pond, a roundabout way, seventeen miles, in company of 
John Richard's son. 



22 

October 25. — Ride to White Plains and return to the edge of 
Greenwich. Camp alarmed. Buy a cropper for my horse in the 
room of one I broke and left the 24th. 

October 26. — Go to camp. See officers of Col. Webb's regi- 
ment, and talk some of my brother. He went to Stamford and 
crossed over the sound to Long Island. The next account of him 
by Col. Montezuxe with a flag, that one Nathaniel Hale, was 
hanged for a spy, September 22. Aide-de-camp Webb with a flag, 
informs that, being suspected by his movements that he wanted to 
get out of New York, was taken up and examined by the general, 
and, some minutes being found with him, orders were immediately 
given that he should be hanged. When at the gallows, he spoke and 
told that he was a Captain in the Continental army, by name Nathan 
Hale. Some deserters asserted the fact, and described his person. 

Lieut. said he saw a woman that said she was then in New 

York, saw and knew him hanging, having been before acquainted 
with him. . . . His effects are mostly saved. His money (if he 
left any) plundered, and considerable due to his under-ofiicers, as 
well as $25 that belonged to A. Wright and $42 to another which 
he had in keeping. 



;/***- 



CAPT. NATHAN HALE. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT GROTON, CONNECTICUT, 



HALE MEMORIAL DAY, 



September 7, iSSi, 



By EDWARD E. HALE. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



BOSTON : 

A. WILLIAMS & CO., WASHINGTON STREET. 

1881. 



V.4 






